Your Arms Feel Like Home
by Griselda Banks
Summary: Oneshot. Spoilers through IW. Steve and Bucky's first hug since coming out of cryosleep, in all its glory. BrooklynBros.


**Author's Note: I can't put into words how ecstatic I was that we (finally,** _ **finally**_ **) got to see Steve and Bucky hug in Infinity War. One thing NewMoonFlicker and I discussed after watching that movie was that it surely couldn't have been the first time they hugged after Bucky got out of cryosleep. That meeting couldn't have been the first meeting; they've obviously been seeing each other off and on, even though it seems Bucky has been staying put in Wakanda while Steve goes off on missions. We were happy to hear that Sebastian Stan was thinking along the same lines; in an interview, he said that if they'd included Steve and Bucky's first hug in Infinity War, "that would be half the film" XD Anyway, I wanted to see what that first hug might be like. And then I wasn't fully satisfied with it, and went ahead to write their second hug too :P Here, use this mountain of fluff to cushion the blow of Infinity War!**

 _This life ain't the fairy tale we both thought it would be  
But I can see your smiling face as it's staring back at me  
I know we both see these changes now  
I know we both understand somehow_

 _There's a life inside of me_  
 _That I can feel again_  
 _It's the only thing that takes me_  
 _Where I've never been_  
 _I don't care if I lost everything that I have known_  
 _It don't matter where I lay my head tonight_  
 _Your arms feel like home_

 _\- "Your Arms Feel Like Home" by 3 Doors Down_

"It is time."

Steve turned away from the window where he'd been pretending to admire the view of mist rising from a waterfall, casting rainbows in the light of the rising sun. He hadn't taken any of it in; the pounding of his heart was too distracting.

As he followed T'Challa through the door into the lab, Steve noticed a glint of metal under the collar of the king's shirt. Steve knew it was the necklace that would turn into his vibranium suit. He would be standing by in case a struggle broke out. Even though T'Challa had proven ten times over that their past misunderstandings were forgiven, Steve hoped he wouldn't have to see the Black Panther in action again.

They rounded a corner, and there he was. The cryo chamber was almost opaque, frosted over with ice, but Steve could easily make out the form of a man lying asleep inside. Steve drew closer, barely even listening to Shuri's explanations as her fingers flew over the controls, gradually raising the temperature inside the cryo chamber.

The clear tube was tilted back at a slight angle, just enough that Bucky wouldn't fall out as soon as they opened it. Steve stepped up in front of it, wanting to be the first thing that Bucky saw when he woke up. He leaned in closer as the ice crystals on the inside melted, and condensation fogged up the clear plastic instead. But he thought he saw movement...nostrils flaring, drawing breath, chest heaving...

Bucky's eyes snapped open, darting around without focusing on anything. Steve could hear his gasping, shuddering breaths behind the thick plastic. With a quick gesture, Shuri opened the capsule, releasing a cloud of cold, clammy air.

Bucky started at the sudden movement, and he looked around with wide, terrified eyes, trembling from fear or the cold—or both. The last time he'd been woken from crysosleep—in fact, _every_ other time—he'd been tortured and brainwashed and forced to kill.

"Bucky," Steve said in a low, even voice. "It's okay. You're completely safe here."

At the sound of his name, Bucky's eyes latched onto Steve's. He fell still, staring at Steve with wide eyes, still trembling all over. How much did he remember? His brain had been tampered with so much; what if the disorientation of cryosleep had muddled up his memories so he had forgotten who Steve was again?

"I'm here," he said, hesitantly holding out his hand, palm up. He was afraid to touch Bucky in this state.

Slowly, Bucky raised his one remaining hand and touched the back of Steve's fingers, as if to check that he was real. "Steve...?"

With a smile, Steve grasped Bucky's hand. "Yeah."

The fear in Bucky's eyes parted like clouds making way for the sun, sparkling with something like hope. "Then...I'm not dreaming?"

Steve tugged on Bucky's arm, guiding him out of the cryo chamber. "Come on out here and let me prove it to you."

Bucky tripped as he stepped out, practically falling into Steve's arms. Steve pulled him close and held him tight, as he had been longing to do for years. In the brief period of time they'd been reunited before Bucky went under again, there had been precious little time for such things.

Bucky's one hand gripped the back of Steve's shirt, and gradually the tremors running through his body faded away. He relaxed into Steve's embrace, hiding his face in Steve's shoulder.

It had been so long since they'd been able to do this, to simply relax and hold each other as tightly as they wanted. Not since the war, a lifetime ago. Since then, so much had changed for both of them. _They_ had changed. The entire world had changed. Everyone they used to know was dead now, every familiar location had been altered by the hands of time.

But nothing could make Steve forget the way Bucky fit perfectly into his arms.

Long minutes ticked past, with no movement except Bucky's fingers tightening their grip on the back of Steve's shirt, and Steve's hand rubbing soothingly up and down Bucky's spine, exactly the way he knew Bucky liked best.

"Am I...safe?"

Steve could tell, even though the question came in the form of a breathless whisper, that Bucky wasn't asking about the danger to himself. "That's why we woke you up," Steve murmured, continuing his soothing motions. "Shuri thinks she's found a way, but you have to be awake for the procedure to work."

Bucky stilled, and there was a sudden shift in the tension of his muscles. He was still calm, but before he had been relaxed. Now he was watchful, wary.

Steve glanced at him, then realized Bucky was looking at something over Steve's shoulder. When Steve looked behind him, he found Shuri standing there, unabashed, recording a video of them on a small device. T'Challa, who had been consulting with some of the lab technicians who bustled around in the background, turned around and saw what she was doing. He chided her in their language, though he couldn't quite hide a smile.

"But this is for research purposes, Brother!" Shuri protested with a cheeky smile, continuing to record Steve and Bucky's embrace. "I must preserve every observation in the name of _science!_ "

Steve glanced back at Bucky to see if he minded this scrutiny, but Bucky just nestled back into the hollow between Steve's cheek and shoulder. With a chuckle, Steve murmured in his ear, "I think you two are going to get along great...nerd."

"Punk," Bucky mumbled, his stubble tickling Steve's neck as he spoke.

"Jerk."

"Idiot."

"Stupid."

"I love you."

Steve's breath caught when he heard those words, but his smile slowly widened as he felt Bucky's arm tighten around him. "That's not an insult," he whispered.

"Oh, but it is. See, I only fall for ugly idiots like you."

Steve let out a snort of laughter, and Bucky began to giggle breathlessly. Clinging to each other, they laughed until they cried, and cried until they couldn't breathe. It didn't matter who was watching or what they heard. They had each other again.

* * *

For once, Bucky woke slowly, rather than jerking upright to find himself surrounded by curious children, or waking himself up by crying out in the throes of another nightmare, and then lying awake staring into the darkness for the rest of the night. This time, he lay in solitude, gazing up at the band of sunlight shining in through the doorway.

So different from his old home in New York, with a bedframe and the constant noise of traffic outside. But the chirping of crickets and the fresh smells of clean morning air and distant cooking fires were also stark contrasts to the sensations of waking up with Hydra, so he was grateful for the unfamiliarity.

With a jaw-cracking yawn, Bucky got up from his sleeping pallet and stretched luxuriously. Then he found his small pail of water and went about his usual morning routine. Despite the advanced technology of the capital city, the outlying communities were still very traditional. Now that Wakanda had opened to the rest of the world, there was no more need for pretense, but technological advances were still in the process of being distributed. Bucky's neighbors still seemed skeptical of the communal facilities that had been installed to provide them with showers and toilets. Bucky was grateful for the convenience, but he hadn't minded bathing in the river either. Still, it was a bit of a walk to the showers from here, so he usually didn't bother first thing in the morning. He liked to go at the end of the day, so he could walk back home in the cool of the evening after his chores were done.

As he put together a cold breakfast from last night's leftovers, Bucky looked around the empty little hut, dimly lit by the sunlight streaming in around the blanket that served as a door. The villagers had helped him construct and furnish his little dwelling, donating colorful blankets and various tools they had no need of in order to make him feel at home. They were all so nice here—even the ones who didn't know any English, even the ones who had never seen a white man before. They had simply accepted him as a fixture in the daily life of their village. He wasn't sure if any of them had an inkling of his past, and he didn't know how he'd go about telling them, even if he'd wanted to.

He paused halfway through his meal, realizing what was missing. Every morning, he was invariably besieged by a crowd of children who seemed to find everything he did fascinating. He wasn't sure if that was because he was a stranger, a foreigner, or just because he had only one arm. But they were always here in the mornings, chattering away in broken English or their own language, not seeming to care that he only understood a fraction of what they were saying and could only speak three words of Swahili in response.

He knew he shouldn't complain, after the tremendous generosity and hospitality the Wakandans had shown him, but he couldn't help it—he was lonely. Part of it was that he would never really be one of them, even if he lived the rest of his life here. But even though he made friends with the children and tried to socialize with the villagers, no one really knew who he was. Who he had been. He was grateful that his history with Hydra hadn't been divulged to them all, and that he could just focus on the present. But he longed for the easy familiarity of someone who already knew him.

Obviously, the one he needed was Steve. But that was the problem. He hadn't seen Steve since the day they'd pulled him out of cryosleep.

Slowly, Bucky put away the remains of his meal and gathered up his dishes to wash in the river. He knew he shouldn't complain or feel sorry for himself. He should be grateful he was being treated so well, and that Shuri had used her expertise to rid his brain of Hydra's foul touch. When the long days of delicate procedures he barely understood were over, they had carefully played a recording Natasha had made of the Words. T'Challa had stood by just in case, and a whole squad of armed warriors had waited in the next room.

Everything had been done for him with the utmost care and consideration. They took all the necessary precautions to defend themselves if worse came to worst, but they never treated him like a monster. They kindly consulted him beforehand about what they could do to make the process less stressful for him, and after they confirmed that he could hear the Words without turning into a homicidal maniac, helped him calm down from the resulting panic attack.

They had cured him, freed him. He wasn't completely healed of the wounds Hydra had inflicted, and he could never really be the Bucky Barnes he used to be, but he had his life back. He could never repay them for that.

But, as pathetic as it might be, he still wished Steve could have been there to hold his hand through the worst of the terror. The procedure had taken much longer than any of them had expected, and of course Steve had been called away to go save someone. He'd said he would come back as soon as he could, but...well, that had been almost two months ago.

With a sigh and a shake of his head, Bucky took his little stack of dishes in hand and used his elbow to push aside the blanket in the doorway. The early morning sunlight, already beginning to heat up in the muggy, misty air by the riverside, shone in his eyes. With his one hand full, he couldn't shade his eyes, so he just squinted as he picked his way along the familiar path to the water's edge. The dewy grass was cool beneath his bare feet.

He spotted the silhouette of someone sitting on the bank of the river, and his heart lifted a little. He needed the children to swarm around him now, asking incessant questions and chattering along too fast for him to follow, forcing him to focus on their innocent smiles and basking in their joyous laughter. It would get his mind off this track of self-pity.

His footsteps slowed to a halt. At first, he'd thought the silhouette was one or two of the children, bending over the water to look at a fish or something. But when it straightened up again, Bucky saw that the silhouette was just one person. A man with broad shoulders, whose sleeves were rolled up past the elbows, revealing skin as light as Bucky's. The dishes slid from Bucky's fingers, falling harmlessly in a tuft of grass.

He started forward, walking at first, but after only a few paces he was running, racing down the hill to the man sitting alone by the water's edge. His heart felt like it would explode, careening out of control as a euphoric smile split his face.

Bucky's feet were almost silent as he ran through the grass, but Steve must have glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye, because he looked up in surprise and was barely able to catch himself on one elbow as Bucky leapt at him, tackling him to the ground.

"Bu—mmph!"

"Steve," Bucky gasped, wrapping his one arm around his friend's torso and squeezing as hard as he could. " _Steve..._ "

And then Steve let himself lie back on the ground, gathering Bucky into a warm, strong embrace he knew so well. Tears stung Bucky's eyes as he buried his face in Steve's chest, breathing in the smell of him. The sweaty, tired smell of someone who could never leave well enough alone, who didn't stop just because it was impossible. And beneath the smell of the long, exhausting journey he'd taken to get here, there was a rich, musky scent. A scent that he'd always noticed around his best friend, even when there'd been much less of him to go around. It always made him feel safe. It was the smell of home.

"You know," Steve grunted, "for a one-armed centenarian, you can sure hang on tight."

Bucky grinned. "Half the hug, twice the love."

The sound of Steve's laugh—his full, overjoyed laugh, the one that made him tip his head back and squeeze his eyes shut—seemed to fill the air around them. Bucky could feel every vibration as Steve shook with mirth. He quivered like a struck bell, resonating in response. Warm waves of joy shuddered through him till his bones ached with it, till he thought he would crack and happiness would spill out in every direction.

"I missed you," Bucky said—or, he _tried_ to say. He got to _miss,_ and his voice stuck. It was like a stone lodged in his throat. He couldn't swallow it down and continue, and he couldn't breathe past it. The long days without Steve rose like a wave and crashed down over him. They hadn't had much time together since the memories of Steve had burst through Hydra's fog, and it felt like only now did he truly understand what he'd lost.

Why hadn't he gone straight to Steve after he'd remembered him? How could he have stayed away from _this_ for two years?

"I missed you too," Steve murmured, the beard he was growing scratching against Bucky's neck. He squeezed Bucky even tighter, crushing them together.

Oh, right. He remembered now. _This_ was why. He had hidden from Steve for two years because he had looked down at Steve, metal knuckles covered in his blood, and had seen nothing but love in those swollen, bloodshot eyes. They were dulled by pain and sadness, but he hadn't found an ounce of fear or anger or bitterness in the eyes of the man he'd been about to kill. That was what had drawn him up short. That was what had haunted him every night after that, as he lay alone in the darkness.

Steve Rogers never did anything by halves. So when Steve loved you, he loved you with all his heart. To someone like Bucky, who was used to Hydra's treatment, it had been overwhelming. It was _still_ overwhelming. Enough to leave him shaking and breathless...

Oh.

"Can't breathe," Bucky gasped, and Steve immediately loosened his grip. He sat upright again, helping Bucky straighten as well. He kept one arm around Bucky's shoulders, for which he was grateful. Just because his lungs didn't seem to want to inflate didn't mean he wanted Steve to go away.

His heart hammered desperately in his chest, like it was testing the strength of his ribcage. He could practically _feel_ the adrenaline coursing through his system, making his breaths come sharper and faster. He was getting dizzy...he couldn't breathe, he was going to pass out...

 _Why now?_ he demanded silently, still clinging to the back of Steve's shirt. _I was_ happy. _This shouldn't happen when I'm happy!_

He didn't want to ruin this reunion. Steve would think this was his fault, he'd regret coming back at all, he'd be disappointed that even after going to all this trouble to heal him, Bucky _still_ wasn't well...

"Easy, pal, easy," Steve soothed, rubbing his back in steady, even motions. "It's okay, don't fight it. Just breathe... It'll pass. You're doing fine..."

Bucky tried to focus on Steve's voice, tried not to gasp so frantically, but there were too many emotions battling within him, and his body was responding the only way it knew. For too long, every strong emotion had been negative. It seemed he didn't know what to do with joy and excitement anymore.

But slowly, the repetitive motions of Steve's hand rubbing up and down his back eased the racing of his heart. Nothing could really endanger him when Steve was there, so calm and reassuring...

Once his heart rate had dropped a little and it didn't feel quite so much like he was drowning, Bucky slumped wearily against Steve's side. He wished he had a left hand to wipe the sweat off his face without letting go of Steve, but instead he had to untangle his right arm from their embrace and wipe his streaming cheeks. Only then did he realize he was crying, his shoulders shuddering with tiny sobs as his body slowly settled back to normal. He roughly scrubbed his eyes, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't stop more tears from spilling out.

"Shhh..." Steve took Bucky's hand in his and tucked Bucky's head under his chin, forcing him to fall still. Bucky let his muscles fall slack and sniffled against Steve's chest, too tired to fight anymore. Steve gently untangled their legs and repositioned Bucky so they were sitting perpendicular to each other, his legs draped across Steve's and the stump of his left arm pressed against Steve's chest.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here," Steve murmured.

Bucky shook his head. "Don't apologize for doing what's right."

With a sigh, Steve smoothed Bucky's hair away from his face and tucked it behind one ear. "I did contact T'Challa when I could, you know. He told me where you were, said you were enjoying the peace and quiet... I didn't want to interrupt the healing process or anything."

"Half of my healing process was seeing your ugly mug again, stupid." He reached up without looking to pat Steve's cheek and felt a smile beginning there.

"Who are you calling stupid, Einstein?" Steve chuckled, holding him close.

"You, idiot."

"Jerk."

"Punk."

"I love you."

Bucky knew he should have seen that one coming, but it still caught him off guard. Those words were like a cool breeze brushing across his skin, refreshing him from head to toe and reminding him what it meant to feel alive. The words, spoken directly into his ear, were underscored by Steve's strong arms locked around him. And even though they were sitting in the grass next to a river in the middle of Africa, he had never felt more at home. There was nothing more comforting or familiar than hearing those words with Steve's arms wrapped around him.

With a great sniff, Bucky looped his only arm around Steve's neck and said in a shaky voice, "You're really bad at coming up with insults, you know. That one was terrible."

Steve's laugh vibrated all through him. "I think we could both use some lessons in that area."

Bucky held his breath for a moment, hardly daring to hope, then said, "Do we have time to practice?"

Steve squeezed him so tightly he thought his ribs would crack. "All the time in the world, Buck."


End file.
